Using food as a tool for emotion regulation : A qualitative study among healthcare professionals of experiences of emotional eating in patients in treatment for overweight and obesity in Finland.

Sammanfattning: Introduction: The issue of overweight and obesity continues to be a growing health problem world-wide. Development of overweight and obesity has several factors and one of them is emotional eating. Emotional eating is a common behaviour among overweight and obese persons and is defined as eating as an answer to, often negative, emotions. In Finland, both nurses and dietitians work with treatment of overweight and obesity and recommendations suggest investigation of emotional eating as part of treatment. Studies using phenomenological methods seldom focus on the experiences of the caregiver regarding treatment of emotional eating, however, several studies investigate mechanisms and prevalence of emotional eating. Aim: To study how dietitians and nurses in Finland experience the phenomenon of emotional eating among their patients in treatment for overweight and obesity. Method: A total of eight semi-structured, qualitative interviews were conducted with four dietitians and four nurses who worked or had been working with treatment of overweight and obesity in Finland. Participants consisted of women in the age span of 31-57 years. Interviews were made through the video teleconferencing software Zoom Cloud Meetings. The recordings were transcribed and analysed using phenomenological method and systematic text condensation according to Malterud (2012). Results: Results consisted of three code-groups, six sub-groups and 12 text-condensates (six condensates for nurses and six condensates for dietitians) which were analysed separately. The code-groups were as follows: 1. Professional experiences of emotional eating, 2. Causes for emotional eating and 3. Treatment methods for emotional eating. The text-condensates showed experiences of emotional eating, its causes and treatment methods. Conclusion: Emotional eating was experienced as a common issue and as a tool for emotion regulation among patients. The behaviour needs to be made conscious and has several possible causes depending on both the individual and the surroundings. Methods for behavioural change were often used to treat emotional eating but participants also experienced lack of knowledge and time for adequate treatment. Psychotherapy and development of tools were mentioned as potential solutions.